Designing, using and evaluating learning spaces: the generation of actionable knowledge

Digital educational technologies, like communication technologies more generally, can undermine the tyranny of distance. If we are not careful, we can slip into thinking that they make space and place irrelevant. This is not the case, as the papers in this special issue demonstrate. Technology needs to be understood as spatially configured and entangled with the material world. When people are using digital tools and resources in activities that lead to learning, place and the material qualities of things matter. This collection of papers introduces a diverse range of ways in which research can create actionable knowledge for those who need to make better decisions about the design and use of new learning spaces.